Article June 18, 2012 Issue

Prayer–not guilt–heals

Deborah Packer

One day as Jesus was passing by   a man who was blind from his birth, his disciples asked him whether the man was born blind because of his own sin or because of his parents’ sin. Jesus answered: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:3). Then Jesus healed the man of his blindness.

What this Bible passage means to me is that we are not punished for past errors. Even in situations where we initially allowed errors of thinking to go unchallenged, we can still correct our thought—and when we do, we can expect to be free of any bad effects. This rule is in fact the third tenet of Christian Science: “We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 497). 

An experience that we had in our family some years ago demonstrates this truth in an immediate, certain, and undeniable way. At the time, I was teaching in a primary school some 40 minutes’ drive from my home, and my son, who was just a year old, was being cared for by a baby sitter, who lived near my work. One day while I was on a field trip to a park with my students, a toddler rushed up the path toward me with her father in hot pursuit. Her happiness made me smile, but as she came closer I realized she had some serious injuries to her face. It so took me by surprise that for a moment I stared. Her father, noticing my attention, offered an explanation: She had fallen down a flight of stone stairs, landing on her face. He added that she had spent more than a week in hospital, and now, three weeks later, she was almost better. 

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